This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Darpan Munjal, Founder and CEO of Atom, an AI-powered startup ecosystem “on the verge of becoming a leading destination for naming and branding.”
Image credit: Courtesy of Atom. Darpan Munjal.
When did you start your side hustle and where did you get the inspiration for it?
The inspiration for my side hustle came in 2011 while I was building another business. I was having trouble deciding on a name for the business, so in a moment of inspiration or desperation, I posted a comment on an entrepreneur forum. I don’t remember the exact wording of the post, but it basically said I was soliciting business name ideas and offering a small cash prize (probably $50) to anyone who submitted the name I ended up choosing. Ta. done! Several people participated and submitted ideas. I liked one of them so much that I found a business name for it.
At this point I began to realize that my original problem with finding a name was by no means unique. Friends, entrepreneurs, and other forum participants I knew through work and networking were familiar with this struggle. I’ve come up with a basic framework for finding names through contests. Why not streamline it and provide solutions to common problems?
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What was the first step you took to get your side hustle off the ground?
The big first step in starting my side hustle was having a problem that needed to be solved. This is a classic rule for entrepreneurship and side hustle business success. First, find a problem or unmet need and think about how to solve it.
Contest-based crowdsourcing is pretty common now, but back then it was much less common and I didn’t know anyone who offered crowdsourced naming contests. So I had to create a place for that to happen!
This meant building the platform itself, which was the next big step for the concept. Because I have a background in technology and marketing, I was able to create a simple, minimal and working product myself. The platform allows people to sign on, list information about the business they’re looking to launch, and share that information with a community of creative people interested in entering naming contests and winning prizes. I was able to.
Once the platform was up and running, we received a significant number of customer service inquiries. So the next step was to hire a freelance customer service support expert. That’s how the business got back on track. It was all very bootstrapped, and while I was certainly confident in the platform’s usefulness, I was a little surprised at how quickly interest grew.
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What was the biggest challenge you faced when building your side hustle and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge for me was finding the time. I was running a completely different business and this was a passion project. I was very interested, but I didn’t have much time to invest.
The good thing was that through my technology background, I understood how everything worked on the backend. He also had customer service and marketing experience, which is fundamental to almost any business. All of this helped me get through my lack of time as there was no learning curve when it came to running a business. So I spread this information on some forums through a friend and it started spreading from there.
How long did it take you to start earning steady income every month? How much money did you earn from your side hustle?
I remember the excitement of getting our first paying customer on the second day of our website launch. It was a satisfying experience and gave us even more confidence that we were addressing a real need that our customers were willing to pay for. At first, my income was a little erratic, but within three months I was making about $2,000 a month. To make our revenue a little more stable, we brought in resources to help with the technology side of building the platform.
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When did you start this business full time? What is the current growth and revenue?
About 7 years ago, about 3 and a half years after I joined the company, I became full-time. I had exited my other business and was looking for my next opportunity. Atom (then Squadhelp) was That opportunity.
We have a strong community of extremely talented creators who want to make money by putting a name to their business, and we’ve already helped thousands of clients. There wasn’t a lot of people in this space trying to solve or understand naming, so there was a lot of room to grow the business.
The growth since I started has been really exciting! The company is currently one of the fastest growing companies in Chicagoland, with annual revenues in the eight figures. We have supported over 50,000 clients including Pepsi, Dell, Nestlé, and Philips. One of our most recent milestones occurred about a year ago when we raised our first funding round, a $10 million strategic investment.
In early April 2024, we completed an exciting rebrand from Squadhelp to Atom.com. It’s kind of surreal that this is all coming from what was essentially a side hustle. Businesses are really growing and changing. Of course, we still have a crowdsourced naming platform, but Atom has become a complete startup ecosystem for ambitious new businesses, starting with a domain and everything a startup needs to build a brand. Offers. Just as atoms are the core building blocks of everything in the universe, we aim to be the fundamental building blocks of the startup ecosystem.
We believe that a premium tier A+ domain name like Atom.com provides a solid foundation to accelerate our growth. With this name and brand, we are truly betting on ourselves as a naming startup.
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What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Being an entrepreneur is hard work, but it’s also a lot of fun. What I like most is that there are continuous opportunities to grow and learn. It’s very fast paced. You are always solving problems. You’re always doing something new. You’re working with some interesting people. We’re pushing the boundaries when it comes to innovation. Applying technology in new ways is definitely one of my passions.
For example, we jumped on the AI revolution and applied it in a variety of great ways, including branding tools, training AI personas that can generate customized names based on patterns and trends, and more.
What advice would you give to people who want to turn their side hustle into a successful business?
First, don’t be afraid to fail and keep innovating. The interesting thing about our business is that although we started as crowdsourcing, we were able to iterate rapidly and evolve into other areas. Currently, the largest part of our business is the brandable domain marketplace, which is performing very well. The benefit of rapid iteration and early failure is that you can gain invaluable insight into what works and what doesn’t, ultimately leading to a stronger foundation.
We need to continue to take steps to build on those rapid learnings. You have an initial idea that’s probably not the right one, but that’s okay as long as you keep trying.
Then, continue to listen to your customers and stakeholders and make any necessary adjustments. If you hear something isn’t working, change it immediately. While it’s true that a few entrepreneurs are singular geniuses, most of us are successful because of who we surround ourselves with and whose opinions we listen to.
Finally, you need to understand the basics of running a business. That allowed us to get Atom into orbit when we had very little time. Some understanding of marketing and operations, product development and technology is required. These may not be the most glamorous ones, but they involve entrepreneurship, so you need to understand all these aspects and be willing to work hard and push the limits.
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